How important is prayer?

Epaphras... is always wresting in prayer for you... Colossians 4:12

I did a lot of acting when I was at school. How much that helped to equip me for the ministry I wouldn’t like to say - though I suspect it did help me to develop the foghorn of a voice which some suggest is one of my trademarks.

Perhaps there was something else too: though I generally had fairly big parts I never had the main one. I was never the star. Queen Gertrude in Hamlet (don’t laugh: I went to an all-boys school) was about the biggest I had.

Solid supporting roles: that was me. And perhaps it was this that gave me a liking for the lesser characters in the Bible. Of course it’s good to focus on the exploits of a Moses or an Abraham, a Peter or a Paul. 

But I think we can learn too from the Barnabases and the Timothys, the Hezekiahs and the Micahs. Even dear old Azariah son of Oded (2 Chronicles 15 in case you’ve forgotten) was once a real blessing to me. And I always smile fondly when I read the greeting of Tertius (“who wrote this letter”, Romans 16:22) as he gives us a cheery wave over the span of two thousand years.

A special favourite is Paul’s friend Epaphras. He pops up just three times in Paul’s letters: little more than a mention, really. But Paul says something which challenges and inspires me: he was “always wrestling in prayer” for the Colossian Christians.

Wrestling in prayer: I love the expression. It conjures up an image of veins standing out on the neck, of sweat dripping from the brow. Effort. Work. Struggle. Literally it could be translated agonising.

And I find myself asking, When did I last do that? Indeed, have I ever done that?

In Christian circles you hear a lot about praying: “turning to the Lord in prayer” or “coming to God in prayer”. But “wrestling in prayer”: how comfortable are we with that? Perhaps it’s something we only associate with times of crisis and desperation, when we feel that all else has failed us and only prayer is left.

There’s nothing necessarily wrong with that - various Bible characters wrestled in prayer at crucial points in their lives. Jacob literally wrestled all night with the mysterious stranger by the Jabbok River (Genesis 32). When the stranger asked to be released, Jacob responded with one of the most awe-inspiring cries in the whole Bible, a cry to make the back of your neck prickle: “I will not let you go until you bless me!” (Can you hear him?) Oh for such tenacity in prayer!

And then there’s poor Hannah. All right, the word wrestle isn’t used. But she was certainly agonising over her childlessness - so much so that the old priest Eli took her to be drunk (1 Samuel 1).

Supremely of course there is Jesus himself in Gethsemane, when his sweat came “like great drops of blood”.

Well, I don’t know about you, but I look at these examples and somehow I feel very small. What do I know - really know - about prayer?

But here’s an interesting thing... When Paul speaks of Epaphras he doesn’t suggest any kind of crisis or turning point in his life: on the contrary, he explicitly states that Epaphras was always wrestling in prayer for others. It was, apparently, part of the normal pattern of his spiritual life. In some ways that makes me feel smaller still.

But why would God ever want us to pray in this way? Isn’t he a generous and bountiful giver? Can blessings only be squeezed out of him, like blood out of a stone? The answer is that while God does indeed delight to give to his children, it is also his desire to deepen and stretch us.

So, no cheap and easy blessings, no coin-in-the-slot prayers. Shallow Christians are no use to him.

Well, this is all very well. But there’s a problem: wrestling in prayer isn’t something you can switch on at will: “Mmm, perhaps I’ll do a bit of wrestling in prayer today - after I’ve read the papers, watched EastEnders and put the cat out, of course...” It just doesn’t work like that. We can’t magic up this kind of prayer by sheer will-power.

So what are we to do?

Here’s a practical suggestion. Why not start a prayer-book - a personal notebook to keep with your Bible? Write down two or three things where you really long to see answers. And then commit yourself to pray doggedly and persistently until an answer (it could be No, of course) is given.

Perhaps, come to think of it, this is what Paul meant by prayer Epaphras-style. It may not have the drama and intensity of some of those other examples - but it’s a start, at least.

Lord God, please deepen and intensify my prayer-life! Give me a greater hunger and thirst after you. Amen.

Don't let waiting be wearisome

I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I put my hope.  Psalm 130:5


Most of us, I imagine, hate being kept waiting. That bus that won't come; that long queue at the bank; that time when the doctor's surgery is "running late"... Grrr! In our frantically busy world it's natural to feel frustration and annoyance.

But times of waiting can in fact be positive and useful. If you know you are likely to be kept waiting you can, of course, always come prepared with a book or paper to read or a puzzle to do. Even if not, you might be able to have a chat with someone else, even if they are a total stranger - who knows, it might make their day; it might even change their life! Have you ever thought of using that "dead" time in, say, the doctor’s waiting room to look around and pray silently for your fellow-patients?

Waiting can be an important part of the Christian life. This applies especially to the matter of prayer. When we pray we would naturally like answers quickly. Sometimes - just sometimes - it happens like that. But very often it doesn't.

That's when we need to remember that God is the only person who knows absolutely every factor in the situation that's on our minds. Only he knows that a speedy answer that suits us might throw other things out of gear. Perhaps that's why the Psalmist adds those little words "and in his word I put my hope". It's as if he is saying, "I refuse to let a bit of a delay dampen my trust in God! I take it by faith that my prayers are not in vain. Why? Because his word gives me that assurance."

There are two main ways of waiting: passively or actively, negatively or positively.

The passive waiter (sorry, I don’t mean the man in the restaurant) folds his arms (so to speak), sits absent-mindedly looking at the wall-paper, and says "All right, Lord, here I am, bring it on." I think there are some people who go right through their lives like that, vaguely hoping for the best. They always end up disappointed and unhappy.

All right, to be fair there are times to let your mind lie fallow, so to speak, and quietly digest what’s going on in your life. But even that inactivity can be a positive thing. (What was it the poet said? “What is this life if, full care,/ We have no time to stand and stare?”) That’s different from just vacantly brooding, that dreary thing we call “killing time”.

The active waiter, on the other hand, having made known to God their need, rolls up their sleeves and gets on with something useful. Aren't there usually various good things we could be doing with our time?

This doesn't apply only to prayer - it can be true of life in general. In Acts 17:16 we read that Paul, having been chased out of a town called Berea, found himself in the ancient city of Athens. He had nothing to do but wait for his friends Silas and Timothy to join him.

So what does he do? - sit around twiddling his thumbs? No. He walks around the city informing himself about the people of Athens. He gets the feel of the place. He gauges the religious atmosphere. He gets involved in discussions and debates with people who know nothing of Jesus. Probably without realising it, he is collecting sermon material through this “dead” time - and when the opportunity is given to him to speak, it bears real fruit: several men and women become believers.

Back to the psalmist. He says that his soul waits for God “more than watchmen wait for the morning”. I imagine that must be hard - waiting through the dark hours for the first glimmerings of light and the start of a new day: ah, what a wonderful thing dawn can be!

Are you in such a phase of your life at the moment? Finding it hard? Well, whatever your circumstances may be, the message is simple: Pray hard, yes. Wait expectantly, yes. But don't forget also to look for ways to maximise even the most barren times. God will not fail you.


Father, I confess how impatient I can be. Please help me to believe that "my times are in your hands”, and that if there is a delay then there is some good reason for it. As you waited so patiently for me to come and put my trust in you, so help me when I am called on to wait patiently for you. Amen.

How should we think about Satan?

Satan... masquerades as an angel of light. 2 Corinthians 11:14

Over the centuries Christians have often got themselves into a muddle over the figure of "Satan". Who exactly is he? Is he in fact a person at all, a "he"? Or is he some kind of impersonal force, an "it"?

Well, as far as I can see the Bible consistently presents him in a personal way, so that is how I have always thought of him, however mysterious his existence might be.

Whatever, what matters is that he comes across as the enemy of God's people, indeed of the human race as a whole, the originator of evil, lies and deceit, the one who tries to trip us up and make us fall. (The word “satan” means literally “accuser” or “adversary”.)

Try this for a question: were you aware that Satan is active in your life today? No? Then that means he has been getting on quietly with his work, perhaps doing damage which will only become apparent at some point in the future, sowing tiny seeds which will one day produce a bitter crop.

We can fall into opposite errors regarding Satan. Some Christians laugh at the whole idea: it's just a lot of primitive nonsense - we can't believe in such mythology in the twenty-first century! (This in spite of the murk we see when we shine a torch into the depths of our own souls, not to mention the unspeakably horrible evils we see around us in our groaning world.)

Others, on the other hand, become almost obsessed with him, sensing his presence at every corner. Whatever difficulty you have, there has to be a demon or evil spirit behind it. I remember big pastoral problems in my own ministry twenty or so years ago because people insisted on seeing demonic forces behind the most everyday problems. (I cringed once to hear of a man whose wife had just died having a “spirit of bereavement” supposedly cast out of him.)

Both these approaches are wrong. The only sensible way to look at it is to say that, yes, the devil is indeed active, and we should be aware of that fact. But we shouldn't go looking for him. James tells us: "Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God, and he will come near to you" (4:7-8). That just about says it all. Don't yield to temptation; just get on with living the Christian life in close fellowship with God. That's pretty much all that most of us need to know.

Jesus was tempted in the wilderness by the devil (Matthew 4:1-11). I'd love to know in what form the devil came to him. Was it just a voice in his head? Or a vision? Did the devil have some kind of bodily form? How exactly did he “take Jesus to the pinnacle of the temple"?

I don't know. But there’s one thing I do know: he didn't appear to Jesus with horns on his head, a long forked tail, and a smoking pitch-fork in his hand. More likely, as Paul puts it in our verse, he appeared "as an angel of light". 

And that is a warning to us. Yes, if Satan came to us in the cartoon manner I have described, well, at least we would know he was there. But no: he comes with a smiling face, with plausible words, possibly with remarkable displays of spiritual power. That, presumably, was how the "false apostles" Paul was so concerned about had come to the church in Corinth. The devil loves to deceive - and it's amazing how capable we Christians can be of being misled.

Before long now it will be Lent, a time for drawing near to God: yes, Easter isn’t far away. It's a time for self-examination, for repenting of our sins (though hopefully we do that regularly anyway). To help us with this we have, apart from that simple verse from James, the encouragement of Paul's words to the Christians in Rome: "The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet" (16:20). 

The message is clear: Christian, walk by faith; be filled with the Holy Spirit; get on with your God-given business; and if you have to think about Satan at all, think about him as a defeated enemy.

Dear Father, as Jesus himself did battle with Satan in the desert, so help me to do battle with him day by day, confident in the knowledge that he will be crushed under my feet. Amen.

Would you say you think about Satan too much - or too little?

Something that can never be repeated

Day after day every priest stands and performs his religious duties; again and again he offers the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God. Hebrews 10:11-12

Every year in August my wife and I celebrate our wedding anniversary. Not terribly original, you might think - don’t the vast majority of married couples do that? Well, yes, they do. And a very good custom it is too.

But there is something we don’t do: we don’t repeat our wedding ceremony, we don’t actually marry one another again. 

The very idea is ridiculous, of course. And no doubt illegal too. Why? Because there are certain things in life which are simply and literally unrepeatable. Marrying again the person we are already married to is one of them.

Life contains many things that are repeatable, some of them very important, and some which can never be repeated, which are likely to be even more important. The writer of this Letter to the Hebrews is talking about a repeatable event which featured in the life of the Jewish people: animal sacrifice, including the shedding of blood.

Every day of the year animals were slaughtered in the Jerusalem temple and the blood poured out for the forgiveness of sins. This, as you can imagine, required quite a little army of priests to cover all the services - notice those words “day after day” and “again and again”. 

But suppose a new priest appeared who was qualified to offer a once-for-all sacrifice, one which never needed to be repeated? Suppose the blood he offered to God was somehow able to deal with all human sin totally, completely and for ever? Wouldn’t that be something! Wouldn’t that be absolutely sensational good news?

Well, says the writer, that is in fact exactly what has happened! Just pause to take in his words: “...this priest has offered for all time one sacrifice for sins.” 

If you ask who this remarkable priest was, the answer is simple: Jesus Christ. And if you ask what blood it was that he offered, the answer to that is simple too: his own, shed on the cross on the first Good Friday. Jesus is both priest and sacrifice.

This is the staggering claim - this and nothing less - that the first Christians proclaimed when the Christian church was born. What the Jewish sacrificial system had been faithfully anticipating by constant repetition for centuries had come to an end. No more sacrifice! Why? - because there’s no need: a perfect sacrifice has been made for all time. This explains why Jesus, at the very moment he died, cried in triumph “It is finished” (John 19:30).

Repeating those historic sacrifices would be like getting married over and over again to the same person. What would be the point? 

If ever there was good news, this is it. All of us have guilty consciences; as the Bible puts it, we are all “sinners”, aware of bad things we have done throughout our lives. If we ever think about God’s final judgment on us at the end of time - and this is something the Bible tells us we must expect - then this thought is bound to make us feel seriously afraid.

But if the sacrifice made on Christ’s cross really has dealt once and for all with all human sin - well, what better news could there possibly be! All my sins are dealt with, even the ones buried long in my past or deep in my conscience! I needn’t fear the day of judgment! This, of course, is why Christians talk about “the gospel”, a word which simply means “good news”.

If all this seems a bit heavy, a bit “theological”, let me sum it up in a few simple sentences: We are all sinners... We all need saving... We cannot do anything to save ourselves... Jesus has done all that is needed... So all we need do is accept for ourselves what he has done once for all. 

This is the gospel. Can you say with confidence, Yes, my sins are forever forgiven, and I am at peace with God? I do hope so.

Lord God, thank you for the once-for-all, perfect sacrifice that Jesus offered for me on the cross. Help me to grasp its wonder and to live humbly and gratefully in its peace. Amen.

Is today the day you should ask God to forgive your sins once for all?